Limit rather than confuse.
Posted in User Experience
This is an issue that we have experienced more than we actually would admit. When building a new website it is easy for someone to feel that they must offer their users every imaginable feature. The results are typically a complicated navigation process, confusing content, and a general lack of direction for future site features.
So what then is the key to ensuring this doesn’t happen to your site?
Limit rather than confuse.
Ok, ok, so what do I mean? Quite simply, if a feature seems unnecessary or would benefit less than a fifth of our users, abstain. Don’t build it. Building a feature that is only useful to a small percentage of your users doesn’t make sense, especially from a return on investment perspective.
Remember MySpace? They let users run wild customizing and adding everything possible to their MySpace page. The result? Users were able to customize images, CSS, and it eventually lead to their pages being so complicated and confusing that usability went out the window. Each MySpace profile page had its own navigation scheme, or lack thereof, color scheme, and varying content. Users had too much choice, too many features.
The trend of limiting features is happening in Social Media sites, just look at MySpace versus Facebook, and Facebook versus Twitter. Users want great features but not at the expense of being confused. Build a few features and build them great.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
This is a very good point, but one that can be hard to convince a client of. Sometimes I try to present the advantages in terms of the ability to better control the costs of developing their core idea, so that they can get it out in the world to get real feedback, instead of the imaginary feedback we give our own products. The actions of users is in many ways more valuable in teaching us how to build better products than our own opinions.
Comment by buzz